Tuesday, 21 January 2014

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

So the door of the windowless room is firmly locked from the
outside, the water level is inexorably rising and a couple of sharks are
circling ominously. How will the Lib
Dems get out of this one? It’s a sad,
sad situation, and it’s getting more and more absurd, but this time a Nick
Clegg style charity single ain’t gonna cut it.
Especially when half of the potential performers are trying to throttle
the other half in an argument over who should be saying “Sorry”.

With just one MP sent to jail and one sex scandal during
this Parliament, you could say it’s been a tame few years for the Lib Dems. But the absence of lurid headlines isn’t much
consolation when your collective soul’s gone AWOL. It speaks volumes that what’s sparking fireworks
amongst Lib Dems isn’t their gutless complicity in a merciless onslaught on the
poor by a pitiless elite. Nor is it the fact that the only way to make an honest document of their 2010 manifesto is
by rewriting each sentence to mean its precise opposite. No, they’re fine with all of that, but when
it comes to arguing about what level of serial sexual harassment is appropriate
for a party big-wig, they’re like ferrets in a sack.

The House of Lords doesn’t do High Noon, because these
expenses-claim lunches won’t eat themselves.
So Monday’s showdown was scheduled for 2.30 pm. That was when, to the background
accompaniment of his charity single “The Oldest Swinger In Town”, the
triumphantly returning Lord Rennard was due to be winched into his appointed
bench, with half of his colleagues strewing rose petals underneath him while the
other half sat with steam whistling out of their ears.

Then, at 2.29 pm, pandemonium! A press release, cobbled together by a Lib
Dem committee none of us knew existed, came whizzing across cyberspace. Lord Rennard’s party membership, it announced,
had been suspended while he was investigated for not apologising for the wrongdoing
their previous investigation hadn’t been able to prove. They wanted his party badge back, but he
could keep the coloured pencils and bumper stickers. (This last concession was largely drowned out
by lawyers across London popping champagne corks.)

Lord Rennard could still have come to the House if he’d
wanted, although he might have had to bring his own folding chair if he intended
to sit. But there was a crowd of
photographers at his door, all set to re-enact a chase sequence on the Benny Hill Show, which would raise the
alarming prospect of becoming the first life peer to go viral on YouTube.
Anyway, he was indisposed, having barely the strength to compose a
2,256-word self-exculpatory press release of his own. So we were denied our promised coup de théâtre, although, on the
positive side, the bricks that would otherwise have been hurled through TV
screens can now be used to build affordable housing.

Seriously, though, why can’t the Lib Dems just get a grip? In the real world, disciplinary procedures don’t
faff around with “beyond reasonable doubt”, or hastily-arranged investigations
to buy time before the next embarrassment engulfs you.

We don’t know exactly what this guy did,
because the behaviour of which he’s accused happens in secret, rather than with
a tannoy blaring “Uninvited frottage taking place in Room 94”. And you do have to tread carefully just in
case an accusation is malicious. But when
you’ve got several women independently affirming they don’t feel comfortable
sharing a working space with him without having a can of Mace handy, it should
be game over. He doesn’t need sympathy
for being misunderstood; he needs a bin
bag for his personal effects and a tersely-worded instruction to go and lurk at
the Job Centre.

But he’s such a brilliant election strategist, bleat his
apologists, launching into a note-perfect rendition of their charity single “Nothing
Compares 2U”. Look, chaps, I know you
have village idiot competitions to enter, so I’ll keep this brief.

Firstly, are you really saying that,
therefore, his victims should just “take one for the team”? Secondly, there are 2.39 million on the
unemployment register, of whom I reckon quite a few could con votes out of a
gullible electorate just as readily as Chrissy-boy, without fondling someone’s
patella. Thirdly, no election strategy
on the planet is going to save the Lib
Dems in 2015, unless all 57 of their MPs are discovered trussed up in a warehouse
in Newport Pagnell, and it turns out they were impersonated after the last
election by malevolent shape-shifters.
The Lib Dems don’t need a strategist;
they need a taxidermist.

On that argument, maybe there’s no time like the present for
the Lib Dems to destroy themselves in an eruption of mutual loathing. It can’t make their next election result any
worse, and perhaps, like a forest fire, it will clear space for fresh growth. New thinkers, bright ideas, a gleaming vision
about a middle way for society. Those of
us who used to consider them their second-favourite political party, because
that was an important component of British life, like saving milk bottle tops
for the Blue Peter appeal, might once again be able to smile.

And if they knock on the door asking us to vote for them? No problem, we’ll just whistle a few bars of our
new charity single: “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.

About Me

I'm a writer who returned to Scotland in 2013 after 30+ years in the Home Counties. If you enjoy reading my ramblings, please return often and recommend me to your friends on Twitter, Facebook and Planet Earth. That way someone may one day give me money to do this sort of thing, which would be nice.
william_duguid@hotmail.com